And, if you’re one of the lucky
ones, we let you know how to spend best spend those miles as well.

Miles are worth 2 cents, at best

Simply put, a mile is worth whatever you can buy with it. In the case
of Lufthansa’s Miles and More program (which I’ll be using for this
comparison), the most valuable thing to
buy is a business (or first) class ticket for a long distance flight.

For that, one mile can worth 1.5 to 2 (Euro-)cents. Spend it
on anything else, like short-distance economy flights or goods,
and it is only worth a fraction.

Here’s the calculation, based on a trip from Germany to Hong Kong.
I’m using actual prices from the time of writing:

Price of a “mileage bargain” ticket

70,000 miles

Taxes and surcharges on the “free” ticket

600€

Cheapest business class fare, any airline

1,700€

Savings

1,100€

Savings per mile spent

0,016€

Frequent Flyin’

There’s one point at which you can really start thinking about those miles:

If you take a dozen or so flights a year, or even just a few long-haul business
class flights, you’ll get enough for a free flight every once in a while.

How much you need to get around, exactly, depends on the airline and a number
of other things. Still, one or two return trips a year usually won’t cut it,
no matter where to. You just won’t collect enough miles before they expire after
two or three years.

The rules of how much miles a flight is worth have evolved into
an arcane art:

Payouts depend on the airline used, booking class, route and
other factors. There are a lot of tips going around how to game the system,
and get the most miles out of each flight.

However, many of the large players are now going for a revenue-based system that
can be harder to game. Lufthansa has a new scheme that hands out 4 miles
per 1€ spent on tickes, not counting taxes and some surcharges.
This means you’ll have to spend 17,500€ (plus taxes) for 70,000 miles.

Most programs are skewed in favor of the “best” customers, though: If you’ve got
a frequent flyer status already, you’ll get a bonus on top.

Still, it can never hurt to sign up for the program and collect miles for
flight that you take. What makes less sense is to pay premium to fly with
your preferred airline: At 2 cents per mile, 1000 miles are worth just
20€ at the very best.

Credit cards don’t cut it any more

Credit cards are probably the second most popular method to collect miles.
There used to be pretty good offers: In 2016, we could still get Visa cards
with a sign-up bonus of 40,000 Miles&More miles, which then earned 1 mile
for each euro spent - a great deal, even considering the 110€ yearly fee.

However, in the EU new legislation now limits the commission for credit card
transactions; and mile payouts went down accordingly.

Today the equivalent card will only give you 4,000 miles on sign-up, plus 1 mile
per 2€. Which means that for 70,000 miles you need to spend 132,000€ on that
card - or the equivalent of a luxury car.

You could still use the card to get a few miles; only that you could get a
better credit card for free; and the included insurance isn’t that desirable
either.

Buying business class through a credit card

“Welcome bonus”

4000 miles

Spending 2,000€ a month, for 6 years

72,000 miles

Credit card fees, for 6 years

660€

Tax and surcharges on the “free” ticket

600€

Savings, compared to a regular ticket

440€

Value of the remaining 6000 miles, ca.

100€

All those papers

Newspaper or magazine subscriptions used to be another way to “generate” miles:
You could “buy” miles for less than 1 cent per mile in that way.

But again, these days are mostly over: You can still buy miles, but at around
1.4 cents per mile they cost more or less as much as they are worth when you
spend them.

If you don’t really want that magazine go ahead, otherwise you’re making a bad
deal.

Buying business class through newspaper subscriptions

6 subscriptions for 13,000 miles

1,020€

Taxes and surcharges on the “free” ticket

600€

Savings, compared to a regular ticket

180€

Value of remaining 8000 miles

140€

Do you even want business class?

All of this assumes that you’re really want to fly business, and that your
alternative is paying for price for that.

But if you’re okay with economy, fares for our route
start around 700€ and Premium economy fares around 1,200€.

If you don’t already have the miles, paying for one of those tickets can be
cheaper and easier than dedicating than trying to rack up miles for the flight.

Take the miles that come your way

In other words: If miles come your way, take them. If they don’t: Don’t sweat it.
There are many other ways to travel with little money, and in style.

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